A recent email from ThermoWorks linked to a blog post about reverse searing hamburgers. The testing they did showed that a burger cooked entirely over high heat spent just 30 seconds in the desired "finished" temperature zone of 153F to 157F. (The assumption is that carry-over will take the burger to the 160F needed for safety.) When using a two-stage cooking method -- initially cooked indirectly to 135F and then moved to high heat -- the burger spent over a minute in the "finished" temperature range, giving you a lot more room for error and still having a perfectly done burger.
Has anyone tried this approach? I have serious doubts that I'd get the kind of crusting desired given the small amount of time the burger is likely to spend over high heat. Using the direct heat only approach my burgers often don't get as crusty as I'd like, and that's with spending 3-4 minutes per side directly over the coals. If that's reduced to 30 seconds per side I can't see how a lot of Malliard reaction is gong to be taking place. My suspicion is this approach may make it easier to hit precisely the desired "done" temperature, but the overall result would be not what's actually wanted. And this is not even considering how you'd get the cheese to melt without moving the burger back to the indirect zone for a couple minutes.
Perhaps the Vortex would make this a more viable approach with the very concentrated heat right above the Vortex.
Has anyone tried this approach? I have serious doubts that I'd get the kind of crusting desired given the small amount of time the burger is likely to spend over high heat. Using the direct heat only approach my burgers often don't get as crusty as I'd like, and that's with spending 3-4 minutes per side directly over the coals. If that's reduced to 30 seconds per side I can't see how a lot of Malliard reaction is gong to be taking place. My suspicion is this approach may make it easier to hit precisely the desired "done" temperature, but the overall result would be not what's actually wanted. And this is not even considering how you'd get the cheese to melt without moving the burger back to the indirect zone for a couple minutes.
Perhaps the Vortex would make this a more viable approach with the very concentrated heat right above the Vortex.